


your umbrella is upside down

by Anonymous



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Mud, batfam, batfamily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 09:05:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11145279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: It's the middle of summer, and Bruce is trying to get work done. Damian has a different idea.-honestly it's just fluff





	your umbrella is upside down

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "Pennies from Heaven" by Johnston and Burke.

_Flick_.

Bruce furrowed his brow, concentrating.

_Flick_.

He leaned over the documents, eyes squinting over the columns of numbers.

_Flick_.

The thunder echoed outside. He breathed through his nostrils. Maybe he had enough time to–

The rain started the next instant. It splattered all over the window, and thoroughly soaked the garden. Bruce stuck the tip of the pen into his mouth. Alfred would be pleased. The hydrangeas were looking limp and sloppy, and needed “a bit of pep, Master Bruce.”

_Flick_.

Bruce spared a small glance at his son who was seated in the nearby window seat. His tongue was sticking out in concentration, but his blue eyes peeked over the book and narrowed in habit. Bruce returned to his documents.

“Tt.”

Or not in habit.

The man cleared his throat, making a show of firmness but really staving off a laugh. Damian had been having a fruitful summer. Especially after decapitating the shrubs for the final time. Alfred had employed him in the garden since then. The boy often complained about the new chores, but Bruce knew Damian liked being outside and expelling his energy, like any young boy would.

A crack of lighting flashed, outlining the study in silver.

It had been a hot summer, thus far. The past week had been humid and muggy, leaving Tim to place his head in the freezer for hours on end (to Alfred’s consternation) and Cassandra and Stephanie to play “Squirt Tag” with spray bottles all over the manor. It had been sluggish for the past couple days, however, being “Too hot to do anything,” as Cassandra had informed him. She also had had an ice tray in her hands when she said this, and it wasn’t until he heard Tim’s shout of indignation and the whoops of the girls that he had given up on even an attempt of order.

Which lead to these late documents.

Bruce rolled back his shoulders and examined them closer. Mr. Fox had insisted on them being done by Monday in his non-insistent but truly insistent “I’ve known you since you were a punk twelve year old so you better do this is if you still want that salad bar installed.”

_Flick_.

Bruce set his jaw and ignored the flick of eraser bits and paper, as he had for the last twelve minutes. Damian was either 1) concentrating very deeply on his sketch and not realizing that all his mess was being expelled over Bruce’s desk or 2) testing him.

_Flick_.

“Damian,” Bruce said, not looking up. “Would you mind brushing your trash toward the window and not toward me?”

He did not reply, but there was a rustle, and Damian resituated himself on the cushion.

“Thank you.”

“Tt.”

Bruce leaned over the documents once more, figures swimming in front of his eyes like the gray storm clouds in the sky.

“Damian,” he called again. “Would you turn on the lamp behind you?”

_Click_.

Warm light flooded the study, contrasting against the storm outside. Yes, that was much better. Now if he could just–

_Flick_.

Bruce stilled. He sighed. It was fine. The boy most likely didn’t–

_Flick_.

_Flick._

_Flick._

_Flick._

_Flick._

_Flick._

_Fli_ –

“ _Damian_ ,” Bruce exhaled shortly. “Would you please–”

A pencil soared through the air and landed on the desk. Bruce picked it up, and heard Damian slouching out of his seat to stand beside his chair.

“…Yes?” he asked after several moments.

Damian looked like an inconvenienced miniature bulldog. He held out his hand and rolled his eyes. “My pencil,” he demanded.

Bruce glanced down at the offensive object. He reached out and tapped it to Damian’s nose. “Have you been out in the garden today?”

“It’s been raining.”

“And?”

“So obviously not, Father,” Damian replied with a snap.

Bruce looked at him, considerate. The boy had been on a routine, and the heat and rain had spoiled it. “Why don’t you go train in the cave?” he suggested mildly, handing back the pencil.

Damian snatched it. “I already have,” he said dully. “You told me you would teach me a new spinal lock. I’ve been waiting for hours.”

“So I did.” Bruce cast a survey glance around his study, thinking. His eye caught the documents and he sighed. “I really need to finish this, Damian,” he explained apologetically.

Damian rolled his eyes again. “Whatever,” he groused, turning back to the window seat.

Bruce caught his son by the tip of his shirt and steered him toward the door of the study. “I need to finish this _alone_ ,” he emphasized. “I’ll be along in a moment.”

“That’s what you said _before_ ,” Damian pointed out.

He pushed the boy forward with a firm pat to the behind. “And so I will. Go on.”

Damian sighed very loudly in a put-out fashion. He threw his pencil behind him and Bruce just dodged it by an inch.

He shook his head and settled in his seat as his son stomped away. It was fine. He was bored and restless. Bruce understood that. At least now he could have some peace and quiet–

_Click_.

Damian had switched off the study lights.

“Damian,” Bruce began, sitting in the dark. “Damian, turn on the lights.”

His son stood near the door, hand on the doorknob. He shot Bruce a self-pleased smirk. “Shan’t,” he announced.

“Young man, turn on the li–”

_Slam_!

Bruce was left in the darkness. Right. Well.  The child needed to expel his energy somehow.

* * *

_BANG_!

The study door slammed open, noise echoing throughout the hall.

There was a shriek of laughter around the corner, and Bruce smiled as he sped after it. Small feet thundered down the stairs. The father followed in long strides, dodging the bits and pieces thrown from Damian’s pocket. Lightning flashed as the two figures tore around the house, making no small amount of noise.

“Too old to catch up, Father?”

“You better hope I don’t!”

Damian skidded over an ornamental rug, using the momentum to fall into a roll.

“Careful,” the father called out, reaching out and just missing him.

Damian scoffed and yanked open the backdoor. “Not a chance,” he shot back, slipping out and trying to shove the door back on the man’s hand. This proved to be his futile, for Bruce plowed right through.

Damian almost yelped as his father’s hand brushed his collar. He bolted across the yard, skirting the pool and ignoring the call of “Don’t run by the pool!”

Cool raindrops fell atop his head and dripped on his face, temperature contrasting with the muggy air. Damian swiped at his brow, almost grinning at the exertion. Finally. He couldn’t stay cooped up in that house much longer. He dashed to the garden, taking care not to trample the newly-planted tomatoes. Bruce followed at a slower pace, leather shoes squishing in the mud with a wet sucking sound.

He waded through the muck, and the two gazed at each other across the span of height.

Damian drew himself up as if he hadn’t been having fun and tearing around with his father had been a pure business interaction. “Not bad, but not the best, Father,” he addressed the man. “But I suppose that is to be expected.”

Bruce raised a brow. He knelt as if to brush the muck off his shoes, and then cupped a handful of mud off the ground and hurled it straight at Damian.

It stuck to the boy’s face with a sticky _plop_! Damian’s mouth dropped open and his eyes went wide, looking more like a little boy than Bruce had ever seen him.

After several moments that rang of shock and raindrops, Damian closed his gaping mouth.

“That,” the child said in an affronted tone, “was _rude_!”

And that did it. Bruce buried face against his propped arm on his knee, shaking in silent laughs. He didn’t even move when he felt the handfuls of wet mud bounce against his ribcage and back. He lifted his face and blinked the laugh-induced tears out of his eyes when Damian took a cue from his older sister and lodged the cold mud down the back of his father’s shirt.

“C'mere, you rascal,” Bruce chuckled, dragging the boy closer and wiping his mud-stained palms over Damian’s hair.

The struggle did not end there, as Damian pushed Bruce into the mud before he slipped himself. From there on, behavior was delightedly disgraceful.

* * *

“Say uncle,” Bruce commanded, holding down his writhing child.

“Never,” Damian vowed, face against the muddy ground.

Bruce raised an eyebrow and flipped the boy over on his back. “You will regret that,” he told the boy seriously.

“No, I most certainly shall not–FATHER!”

Hysteric laughter dissolved into hiccuping giggles. “Stop, stop,” Damian commanded imperiously, despite his panting breaths in between giggles.

“Say uncle,” Bruce instructed again, white smile showing against his muddied brown face.

Damian wiggled away from the tickling, shaking his head. “I never surrender,” he announced haughtily.

Bruce caught his foot, tugging him closer and leaving a Damian-sized streak in the mud. “Then you’ve asked for it.”

“No, no, stop!” Damian shrieked with most unmanly giggles, kicking up his knees to dislodge his father blowing raspberries. “Fath-ER!”

“Say uncle,” Bruce said through a laugh.

Damian glowered up at him, face flushed and hair swept up with mud. “Uncle,” he muttered reticently.

Bruce nodded and sat back on his haunches. “And don’t you forget it,” he told him, hauling his son up and putting him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

“Unlikely,” Damian sniffed as they trudged along. “I have mud in my ears.”

“Just as long as you wash behind them.“ 

They had made it to the backdoor now. Alfred stood on the other side, arms coolly crossed. “If you think that you two are walking all over my clean floors,” he announced with a snap, “you are out of your _bloody minds_.”

Damian stiffened, unaccustomed to hearing Pennyworth curse, but Bruce grinned.

“Good idea, Alfred,” he said, removing Damian from around his neck and holding him above his head. “I’ll just catapult him through that open window upstairs!”

Alfred’s iron mustache quirked as he watched Damian kick his feet and curse while Bruce laughed with abandon and kept the squirming child in his hold despite the escape attempts.

“Or,” the elderly man said as he waited for the havoc to settle, “you will go to the pool house and use the showers there, sir.”

The rain trickled around them.

Bruce cleared his throat. “Or we could do that,” he agreed.

Alfred watched them trudge off, one shrill voice and one low, Damian still kicking up his heels and Bruce pretending to drop him. Alfred sighed softly, shaking his head as he shut the door with a click. 

“My poor hydrangeas.”


End file.
